A Girls’s World Cup of change, of sudden early departures and tantalizing arrivals, has accomplished its upending of certainty and custom.
No former champion stays within the match with two rounds to play.
Gone prematurely are america, with its 4 world championships, and Germany, with two. Ousted is Norway, the 1995 victor. And now Japan, the 2011 winner, has exited within the quarterfinals with a 2-1 defeat to Sweden on Friday in Auckland, New Zealand.
In fact, it might be extremely inaccurate to contemplate Sweden an arriviste. It has participated in all 9 Girls’s World Cups, ending second in 2003 and third thrice. But it surely has by no means received a serious match and longs to be a first-time champion.
Sweden will face Spain within the semifinals after smothering Japan’s versatile assault within the first half after which defending for its match life within the second. It constructed what appeared a safe lead early within the second half by scoring twice not directly on its specialty, set items, then held on as Japan, determined and energized, made a fierce, if futile, cost.
Japan, which had scored 14 objectives in its first 4 matches and appeared a good choose as one of the best workforce left within the match, didn’t handle a shot within the first half. But it surely woke up because the exit door loomed, creating livid probabilities within the second half. However it’s going to lengthy remorse a missed penalty kick within the seventy fifth minute.
“We fought so onerous as a result of we needed it,” Japan’s captain, Saki Kumagai, mentioned by means of tears. “We wish to go to the following spherical, after all.”
Sweden’s victory, Spain’s first journey to the semifinals and Japan’s exit appeared in line with the spirit of a World Cup with the match’s biggest-ever subject; the best attendance at this stage; and essentially the most receptive embrace of the newly-risen and revealing ambitions of groups like Colombia, Jamaica, Nigeria, South Africa and Morocco.
Lastly, FIFA can start to say with some legitimacy that the Girls’s World Cup provides an occasion of worldwide, not merely regional or entrenched, chance. The opposite facet of the draw is an analogous reflection of that progress: Australia will face France, and England, the reigning European champion, will play Colombia.
On Friday, Sweden pressed excessive by means of the primary half to suffocate Japan’s assaults. However when it possessed the ball, Sweden was affected person, utilizing brief passes to take care of possession and in search of an extended ball to make the most of its top and aerial expertise.
Within the thirty second minute, Sweden’s set-piece mastery delivered a scrappy objective. Six of its 11 objectives within the match have come instantly or not directly from set items — 4 from nook kicks. This time, midfielder Kosovare Asllani’s free kick rattled round within the penalty space and the defender Magdalena Eriksson stored the play alive with three jabs on the ball. Lastly, it fell to her fellow heart again, Amanda Ilestedt, who scored from simply contained in the six-yard field.
“I believed, ‘I’m simply going to place it away now,’” Ilestedt mentioned. “In order that was an ideal feeling.”
Even earlier than that, nevertheless, Sweden had set a bodily tone towards the smaller, youthful Japanese gamers.
“They hadn’t performed, like, a bodily workforce till they performed us,” mentioned the Swedish substitute Sofia Jakobsson, who performs for the San Diego Wave within the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League. “We’re larger than them and will go into tougher tackles.”
Because the second half opened, Japan’s goalkeeper, Ayaka Yamashita, pushed a shot simply large from the charging Johanna Kaneryd, giving Sweden a nook kick. Fuka Nagano dealt with the ball because the nook sailed into the gang in entrance of Japan’s objective, and after a video evaluation, Sweden was awarded a penalty kick. Filippa Adngeldal slotted the ball low and to the left, giving Sweden a 2-0 lead.
It was not a secure one.
“One thing occurred,” Jakobsson mentioned. “I don’t know in the event that they had been rising into the sport or we had been changing into extra drained.”
After enjoying extra defensive-minded within the first half, Japan’s assault was energized by the substitute Jun Endo. Sweden had anticipated a vigorous comeback, with Eriksson warning earlier than that match that Japan’s assault may “come from wherever and they’re going to by no means cease.” Her remark proved prophetic.
Within the seventy fifth minute, Japan received a penalty kick when the substitute ahead Riko Ueki had her heel clipped by Sweden’s Madelen Janogy. However Ueki’s shot clanged off the crossbar, and her header on the rebound looped excessive over the objective. It was steered afterward to Sweden’s left again, Jonna Andersson, that her workforce was dwelling a charmed existence within the knockout rounds, having survived a penalty shootout solely 5 days earlier to remove america.
Andersson smiled and mentioned she most well-liked to consider it was the imposing presence Sweden’s excellent goalkeeper, Zecira Musovic, not luck, that had made the distinction once more, no less than on Ueki’s try. “Perhaps it’s a very good goalkeeper that takes some vitality or disturbs the penalty taker,” Andersson mentioned.
Within the 87th minute, Japan lastly scored on a rebound by Honoka Hayashi after a failed clearance by Sweden gifted her a straightforward shot at Musovic. However not even 10 minutes of added time had been sufficient to discover a tying objective.
Japan was gone. And a first-time Girls’s World Cup champion waits its crowning second.
“I feel we now have the workforce to go all the way in which,” Andersson mentioned. “And now we’re one step nearer.”
